This Place Called Memory
by celipsis
Summary: One winter over a decade after the final battle, Draco is in Japan on Ministry business. But Draco is struggling - and not just because he can't get home for Christmas. He avoids thinking about the past or future, and often even the present. Draco/OC R
1. Departure

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the wonderful JK Rowling.

Chapter One: Departure

Japanese Wizarding Ministry - 19 December 2009

The room Draco was staying in was luxurious enough -- that was certain. There was not a speck of dust to be seen, nor a piece of furniture that did not fit with the other decor. And the setting sun shone brightly through the windows -- windows so large that they took up almost an entire wall. The eerie, fading light gave the room a mysterious, almost magical feel. A magical feel to the edifice for Magical Interrelations of the Japanese Wizarding Ministry. How ironic.

Even more impressive than the richly decorated room was that on the three distinct occasions Draco had stayed in this building on business from the British Ministry of Magic, his allotted bedroom had always looked vastly different. On his first such trip, his room had been reminiscent of Japanese feudal times, complete with presumably authentic religious and secular art. Draco was greeted to a brush with nature on his second trip, and the inside of his room had been transformed into a majestic, mountainous Japanese landscape, accessible from a superbly furnished cottage that the door opened into. This trip, the room was decorated in a caricature of nineteenth century Europe. The atmosphere was blissfully calming.

Of course, Draco could only become so calm what with that blasted letter burning a hole through his mind. Not that it was actually burning a hole through his mind, of course. No, the letter lay on the old-fashioned desk innocently enough, but its presence was a constant reminder of how the Ministry had declassed him.

With a sigh, Draco snatched the letter impatiently off the desk, as though reading the letter through one more time would free his mind from its vexing grasp. "To: Mr. Draco Malfoy," it read.

_Regarding your upcoming trip to Japan: Approximately two weeks ago, you requested use of magical transportation methods to better enable you to fulfil your purpose in Japan. You begged members of the Department of Magical Transportation to remember that it was on the request of your superior and head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation Mr. Scott Gavan that you would be travelling to Japan in the first place._

_However, you did not file your request for this lessening of transportation restrictions at least one month prior to your departure, as is required under the Decree for International Defence and Public Safety. Therefore, it is with deepest regret that I inform you that your request cannot be granted. We can provide you with an escort to Japan to safely guide you through use of the Floo Network. However, because you have planned your return during the winter holidays, a very busy time travel-wise, we cannot provide you with an escort for your return trip, nor can we lift the restrictions that prevent you from travelling alone._

_We encourage you to make use of Muggle transportation. Alternatively, you could wait until the middle of January, at which time we could make arrangements for you to return to England by magical means. _

_Undoubtedly, you will be frustrated by our inability to accommodate your needs. If that is the case, we must remind you that we only impose these restrictions with the safety of the public in mind. Perhaps in time we can lift these restrictions._

_Sincerely,_

_Ms. Gabriela Pena_

_Department of Magical Transportation_

Draco scowled at the offending letter, as though he could vanish it with a purposeful glare. It was only further proof of the Ministry's disgraceful decline. How kind of them to send him a letter explaining everything he had asked about, and many things he had not; too bad the owl couldn't find him until after he was in Japan. How kind of them to let him know now that he had no sure way of getting home -- and right before for Christmas, too!

Besides, could they have used any more words to explain such as simple thing? It was as though whoever had written it had recently swallowed a thesaurus, then proceeded to cough up pieces of it all over the letter. A simple "no" would have sufficed.

And the things they insinuated! "You begged members of the Department of Magical Transportation to remember . . . ." Draco had done no such thing. Malfoys did not beg.

What's more, they had so casually worked in a reminder to Draco, a threat that lurked on the fringes of the letter. Don't forget, it hissed. Don't screw up. It was not enough for the Ministry to simply have something to hold against him; they needed something to make it stick. Draco almost wished that his years as a teenager could be forgotten. He almost wished that the Ministry would no longer care about his actions during the rise of the Dark Lord. Almost.

For an unmeasurable amount of time, Draco sat on the edge of his bed, resting his head in his hands as he simply thought. He slowly mulled over the past, or parts of it anyway; it was as though he hoped that things would start to make sense if he just contemplated them long enough. But no matter how long he sat there, all that changed was the scene outside the massive windows. Stars emerged, clouds blew by, the moon rose, and the only sign of life on Draco's part was the subtle, rhythmic rising and falling of his shoulders in time to the ticking of the old carriage clock. He was practically in a state of meditation, a stupor of sorts. At first glance, he appeared to have fallen asleep while perched on the edge of the bed, and the picture was almost comical.

Then without any apparent trigger, Draco lifted his head, his face calm, but mask-like. He blew out the magically enhanced paraffin lamp next to his bed, plunging the room into the darkness of the night.

***

After several hours of fitful sleep, Draco rose grudgingly. Gliding to the mirror, he examined his tired face. Draco traced the lines under his eyes, which now seemed permanently engraved into his visage.

By the morning light, Draco packed his suitcase with a wave of his wand. He dressed quickly but neatly; it wouldn't to leave the impression that he was somehow inferior on his day of departure.

With one last check of the room, Draco exited into the corridor, swinging the door gently shut behind him. The corridor was dimly lit this early in the morning, perhaps in an attempt to allow guests to sleep as long as necessary. Not that the building was filled, as it certainly wasn't. The Japanese Wizarding Ministry provided this building for foreign magical guests who needed somewhere to stay. It was a magnificent set of rooms -- the Japanese were certainly hospitable -- but there were not many wizards or witches who travelled for business at this time of year. Draco knew for a fact that there was only one other person -- a wizard from Germany -- staying in this building, one who was soon to have the establishment to himself.

In a few minutes, Draco had reached the reception, and he approached the modest desk on the far side of the room. A Japanese Ministry witch in her early thirties -- strangely not the same woman he remembered from his first two trips -- stood behind it, smiling timidly at the solemn Malfoy.

"Ohayou gozaimasu, Malfoy-sama. Did you enjoy your stay in Japan?" said the woman in accented English, bowing in acknowledgment.

"Very much, yes. Thank you," replied Draco. He approached the desk and placed a metal shape on the desktop in front of the witch, placing his wand beside it. The curious shape was a metal circle with a sun-shaped hole cut out of the middle of it. The disk reflected beams of light in impossible, abstract patterns on the walls, though there was no light source shining on it.

"And I will need the password to your room you chose when you arrived, Malfoy-sama," added the witch as she slid the metal circle towards herself. "I need to clear the password from the Lumistrate."

Draco's eyes locked with the woman's for a second. "Glacies," he said in a low voice, breaking eye contact.

The woman took out her wand and began to speak quickly under her breath, presumably in Japanese. Her words formed a sort of low chant, and as she spoke, the metal circle glowed first a deep burgundy, then the palest of golds. The witch stopped reciting her spell, and after the last traces of colour had faded from the metal, she placed it in a drawer of the desk.

Next she turned to Draco's wand, lifting it delicately and turning it to examine it from all angles.

"What is your wand made of, Malfoy-sama?" she asked, not lifting her eyes from his wand.

"Cypress and dragon heartstring, thirteen inches," replied Draco in practically a monotone.

The woman turned Draco's wand around in her hands once more, tracing its length with her fingertips. Eventually, she took out her own wand, pointing it at Draco's. A focused beam of light issued from the tip of her wand, and she trained this light on the end of Draco's, peering closely at his wand as though she was getting some important information from the magic she was performing.

When she laid Draco's wand on the desk again, he made to reach for it, but he drew back his hand in response to a confused yet penetrating look from the witch.

"There are restrictions on your wand . . . Malfoy-san," she said quietly, her voice hushed, though whether from confusion or alarm Draco could not tell.

"Yes," Draco replied equally quietly, "I know."

"Then you are . . . were . . . ," she said haltingly, staring resolutely at the wand, her brow knit together in puzzlement. "Forgive me, Malfoy-san," she continued after a pause, seeming to have regained all her former composure. She spoke now in a normal tone, which sounded unusually loud after her previous silent contemplation. "I was merely confused. The Ministry asked me to check your wand and add a report to the records, but they did not explain much more than that."

"It's not a problem."

The two stood in silence for another minute. Draco imagined that the woman's mind was working quickly, trying to sort out her confusion. Of course, living in Japan she probably wouldn't have run into people with restrictions on their wands. Then again, even back in England you didn't meet many . . . . Draco cleared his throat.

"Thank you for your services, and those of the Japanese Ministry."

"Of course, Malfoy-san," the woman said hastily. Then she smiled, but though the smile seemed genuine, the witch didn't appear quite as calm as she had before. "Have a good day, and Happy Christmas to you."

"To you, too." Draco nodded once. Then he crossed to the front door, stepping out into the cold, sunlit air.

_A/N: So here's the first chapter! It's a little shorter than I expected, but oh well. This is being written for MuggleNet FanFiction's Winter Snows monthly challenge (the first prompt). The challenge was to write about a canon character trying to get home to family for Christmas, despite whatever obstacles are in his/her path. One quick thing:_

_The witch at the front desk says _ohayou gozaimasu_ to Draco. That's Japanese for "good morning"._

_Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review!_


	2. Emergence

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I'm not JKR, so the lovely Draco doesn't belong to me :( The OC that appears in the next chapter is mine though! But I also don't own the song "Asterisk", whose lyrics are featured in this chapter (not a songfic though).

Chapter Two: Emergence

Yoyogi Park - 20 December 2009

Draco was falling, but gently. It was more like floating down from the sky. Oddly enough, the Japanese Ministry buildings had been built in the air, invisible to Muggles, because the Ministry had relocated to Tokyo long after it had become such a thriving metropolis. The only place left to build was up.

It was designed so that the only way to enter was by the Floo Network or Apparation. There was an abandoned entrance to the underground nearby, but instead of a station, it contained only several fireplaces.

Of course, getting back down to street level was another matter. Rather than add to the ensuing chaos by using the Floo Network to transport people down, there were magical, invisible tunnels -- one from each of the various department buildings -- that lowered people gently down. Inside the tunnels, wizards were sheltered from the view of prying Muggles, and because the Ministry was built over the large Yoyogi Park, people could exit the tunnels into the trees without fear of being spotted by Muggles.

Draco did exactly that, emerging into an area filled with tall, browning grasses, among which was nestled a walkway and a small frozen pool. Inevitably trampling some of the vegetation, he made his way to the walkway. Of course, it wouldn't do to leave signs of his presence. He doubted visitors were encouraged to leave the paths.

"_Fontius_," murmured Draco, flicking his wand towards the trampled foliage. The grass that he had stepped on sprung up again, leaving no trace of his passage.

The morning had dawned chilly yet clear, for the sun strained through the thin winter air, warming the air to a surprisingly comfortable temperature. It was the type of day meant to be spent outside so that one could savour what might be the last mild day before winter's end. Draco supposed that people would be doing exactly that. Yoyogi Park was known for being a popular place on Sundays, though Draco himself had only been there once before; he recalled having wound along this same path, taking in the sight of the trees, glowing in what had then been strong, summer sunlight.

Draco followed the tortuous trail what seemed like for the longest time, feeling pretty sure that it would eventually curve back to the centre of the park. He ambled along methodically, revelling in the morning silence. But he could already hear an echo of the babble of voices floating through the trees from where people were performing, playing, and socialising.

"Reiko-chan! O genki desu ka?" Draco heard a woman call, her voice carrying on the wind. He was pretty sure that meant, 'How are you?' though his Japanese was only rudimentary. But being able to pick out individual voices meant that he must be getting close to the more popular areas of Yoyogi Park.

Finally he emerged from the trees into a paved square with a bandstand behind it. There were already many people in the square, all Muggles from the looks of them. Yes, definitely all Muggles . . .

Just in the last month, Draco had become very good at telling Muggles from other wizards, even in a setting where the wizards tried to blend in. It wasn't so much because the wizards had trouble dressing like Muggles, or even because they were careless with using their magic. No, the Wizarding world was very dedicated to preserving the Statute of Secrecy. At Hogwarts, for example, it was mandatory that students take at least one year of Muggle Studies. Professor Dobbs taught first years how to fit in with Muggles, and all that exciting stuff.

But it was the way that other witches and wizards carried themselves, the way they walked that gave them away. Almost a month ago, a renegade group who claimed to support the fallen Dark Lord had emerged, its members dividing into three groups and causing mayhem in Britain, China, and America. In Britain, six wizards and witches had begun firing off spells outside the Leaky Cauldron, killing five Muggles and a middle-aged witch. Of course, the Ministry officials captured them quickly and locked them in Azkaban; Merlin only knew what insanity had caused those idiots to think they could get away with murder.

Nevertheless, "the aftershock" -- as the incident had been dubbed -- had thrown the Wizarding world into a panic. The renegade group had killed twenty-three people -- an inconsequential amount compared to the deaths at the hand of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. But those who remembered the time not so long ago when the Dark Lord's word had been law, they were scared that it would happen again. "What if _he_ comes back again?" witches and wizards had whispered to their friends and family. "What if it isn't over?"

For the most part, the terror that had been re-ignited by the aftershock had subsided, but those old enough to have lived through the rise of the Dark Lord could not forget -- not really. Not that the Ministry hadn't _tried_ to calm people -- Draco didn't even want to think about the "reassuring" measures they had taken!

But even almost a month after the aftershock, wizards walked with their gaze focused straight ahead, taking care not to look into people's eyes. Witches clutched the hands of their children anxiously, pulling the little ones along whenever their young curiosity slowed their pace. That's how Draco could tell. The Muggles at the park were enjoying their Sunday, some literally dancing around in joy, and a cautious wizard or witch would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

Draco had come to a halt while he surveyed the scene before him. The Muggles in this park were surprising. Like the group under the shadow of the large tree to Draco's right -- they were apparently teenagers, practising some martial art. Around them a small crowd had gathered, watching and cheering as the boy and girl in the thick of the group kicked and swung at each other.

And the young Muggles posing on the bridge off to Draco's left! There were four of them dressed in strange costumes . . . and another boy who seemed to be photographing them. One of the girls had on a skirt and top that were normal-looking enough -- if a tad revealing -- but she was also wearing fake wings and a top hat with rabbit ears! Next to her was a boy who also had wings and -- and cat ears! Merlin! Draco could have walked around in his old Hogwarts uniform, cloak and all, and still looked less ridiculous than those people!

Of course, not all the people in the park were so strange. A short way in front of Draco was an older couple, sitting calmly and talking. And in the centre of the square, a group was playing rock music on their guitars while a few others danced giddily in front of them, singing along as well.

"_Miageta yozora no hoshitachi no hikari_," they sang, or screamed really. "_Inishie no omoi negai ga jidai wo koe . . ._ ." The song was very fast, and Draco's Japanese wasn't good enough for him to understand the lyrics, though he thought it had something to do with light and stars.

Draco looked away from the band and began walking again, stepping forward to sit on the bench across from the one occupied by the couple. He didn't really know what he planned to do next, though he supposed he had to find some way to get home. It would soon be Christmas after all -- a holiday for family, one he should spend with his Astoria.

"_Kirari hitomi ni utsuru dareka no sakebi . . . ._" The singing invaded Draco's thoughts.

But the damn Ministry -- as paranoid and useless as ever -- had reduced Draco to using Muggle transportation! What the hell did he know about anything like that?

"_Bokura no omoi mo itsuka dareka no mune ni . . . ._"

Draco sighed in frustration. The music was making it so hard to sort through his jumbled thoughts. Draco stood up and walked briskly off, earning himself a cross look from the band members as he pushed brusquely and rudely through. His only thought now was of finding somewhere quiet, away from the irritating crowds of Yoyogi Park. Perhaps a pub where he could brood in silence over a satisfying drink.

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for reading! Love it? Hate it? Let me know! For serious, please leave a review because it would make my day! _

_Oh and the song being sung by the band in the park is "Asterisk" by Orange Range. Good song, but it doesn't belong to me at all!_


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